The restorative power of "going to a movie" is an indication that a film can have the power to put the viewer's ego in touch with the Self, in the sense this term has been used by C. G. Jung. Jung's Self refers to a center in the psyche that represents the interests of wholeness and objectivity, with overarching spiritual concern for the integrity of the psyche in its dealings with the world.

The Jungian viewer of movies today needs to develop criteria for recognizing how some films manage to make this level of psyche evident, when most films fail to get beyond dramatizing persona, ego, shadow, or anima/animus dynamics. A film that includes the presence of the Self includes more than just the sum of these other iconographic elements. It has the uncanny effect of taking the viewer beyond them to a broader perspective than mere identification with problems the viewer can already recognize. To find the Self, attention to Jungian symbolism can be helpful but is rarely sufficient: the style of a film as a whole must be studied alongside its story, stars, and particular images. It is not enough that the scenario refers to religious themes, or to the possibility of a greater personality impersonated by a movie star skilled at attracting the audience's projection of the Self. The essence of the Self is more subtle and elusive, and requires a different level of imaginative participation in what a great film can offer.

This presentation will use clips from classic movies to develop some of the ways the Self has been effectively evoked cinematically by the greatest film masters, both male and female. The questions Dr. Beebe will seek to answer are (1) how can the Self emerge in a film, and (2) how may we, watching the film, recognize that it has done so?

John Beebe, M.D., a Jungian analyst and psychiatrist in practice in San Francisco, is a past President of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. An internationally recognized clinical teacher of Jungian psychology, he has lectured on topics related to analytical psychology throughout the United States and in Europe, and his writings have appeared in the Chiron Clinical Series, The Journal of Analytical Psychology, Psychological Perspectives, Quadrant, Spring Journal, and many books. Dr. Beebe is the author of the book Integrity in Depth, a study of the archetype of moral wholeness. One of the very first Jungian film critics, John Beebe's movie reviews have appeared in Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. His more extended writings of this medium appear in Jung and Film, and the upcoming Jung and Film II, as well as his own The Presence of the Feminine in Film, written with Virginia Apperso.

Barry Spector, Madness at the gates of the city: The myth of American innocence

This presentation offers a view of American history and culture through the lenses of Greek myth, archetypal psychology and indigenous wisdom. Dionysus was the Greek god of ecstasy, tragedy and madness. But that was long ago. Or was it? After two millennia of Christianity and five centuries of science, Dionysus – or his modern substitutes – persists in our imagination as "the Other." He is everything that America has cast into the shadows: woman, nature, the body and especially race. As such, he provides a unique window into American history and culture, and especially the current political madness.

Early white Americans developed literature, theology and political rhetoric that over time gradually coalesced into narratives of new beginnings, heroic destiny and good intentions. However, these stories veiled deep strains of Puritanism, racism and imperialism, and they utilized the threat of dark strangers – first Indians, witches and slaves, then communists – to provoke our anxieties. After four centuries, fear of the Other, now as terrorists and immigrants, still defines us as "not them."

Mythological thinking provides a broader perspective to understand our political, economic and religious concerns. This presentation includes storytelling and poetry as well as time for conversation.

Barry Spector is a mythologist, author and oral poem teller in the old traditions. He is the author of Madness At The Gates Of The City: The Myth Of American Innocence, and has published articles in Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. He and his wife Maya perform in The Great Night of Rumi, Rumi’s Caravan and The Great Night of Soul Poetry, regular celebrations of recited poetry and music. Although not a poet himself, Barry feels that the revival of spoken poetry and storytelling is a key to cultural renewal. He and Maya also present Oral Traditions Poetry Salons at their home and conduct an annual Day of the Dead grief ritual in early November.

Maria Chiaia, Ph.D. Dark Radiance: Landscapes of the Soul

Saturday Oct 8, 2011, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Art 108, Sonoma State University
Donations accepted
Doors open at 9:30 a.m.
$20 fee for 3 hours CE for therapists (BBSE); CE registration at the door the morning of the event
Free parking in Lot A next to the Art Building (download campus map)

Man’s inner life is the “secret place”…the spark of the light in nature. Those labouring in the darkness must try to accomplish an opus that will cause the “fishes eyes” to shine in the depths of the sea, or to catch the “refracted rays of the divine majesty”…

Chaos and darkness have a light and a meaning, and a dark radiance will shine if held in a deep analytic relationship. In sandplay, the elements of earth, our body; air, our breath; fire, our spirit; and water, our lifeblood give an experience and expression of the landscape of the soul. At first, the earth and wetlands of the soul may be all cemented over, filled in with roads that run helter-skelter. From engagement with tormenting problems, experiences of grief and joy, anger and calm, longing and equanimity, anxiety and stillness unfold in the analytic relationship. By listening together to what lays beneath the words, in the silence, shifting natural forms emerge and find expression in sandplays which tell a non-verbal story of a soul. ‘White sparks’ shining in the ‘terra foetida (the fetid earth), also called ‘fishes eyes’ emerge. In the darkness of the forms made of the earth and on the earth, there is light or illumination; a language of landscape tells a story like the stars in the night sky, constellations of meaning.

An Illumination that may be equal to the darkness springs from suffering, pain or an insoluble dilemma or conflict. As powerful affective states found in images from dreams and in the sand stories are contained, held, and related to, inner landscapes change. New landscapes are discovered: landscapes of loss and devastation; landscapes of sadness, rage or joy; or natural landscapes of mystery and numinosity. In this presentation a few clinical stories and sandplays created by adults and children will illustrate the dark radiance that emerges, and the transformation of images and psyche in landscapes of the soul.

Maria Chiaia, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Berkeley and Marin and works with adults, children and adolescents. She is a teaching member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy and has lectured and taught internationally and at many universities and institutes. She is co-author of Sandplay in Three Voices: Images, Relationship, the Numinous and has authored many articles and book chapters.

Maureen Murdock, Ph.D. The Evolution of the Image of the Sacred Feminine

Saturday November 5, 2011, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Art Building 108, Sonoma State University
Donations accepted
Doors open at 9:30 a.m.
$20 fee for 3 hours CE for therapists (BBSE); CE registration at the door the morning of the event
Free parking in Lot A next to the Art Building (download campus map)

If we believe, as Jung did, that the whole history of the human race is in some ways always alive in the psyche, we can reclaim images of the Sacred Feminine, which is an eternal archetype. She has shown herself to us from the earliest times of our civilization in cave paintings and primitive sculptures, in the great mythologies, and she appears in many guises in our present cultures. She is part of the fabric of our very being. In this slide lecture we will look at images of the Sacred Feminine throughout recorded history from Paleolithic times to the present, with special emphasis on the findings of Marija Gimbutas from the Neolithic period, to remind us of how she is alive within each of us today.

Maureen Murdock, Ph.D., M.F.T., is a depth psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Barbara, former Chair and Core Faculty of the MA Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and adjunct faculty in the Sonoma State Depth Psychology Program. She is the author of The Heroine's Journey, as well as the newly revised Fathers' Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind; Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory; Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children; and The Heroine's Journey Workbook; and editor of Monday Morning Memoirs: Women in the Second Half of Life. She gives lectures and workshops internationally.